


in a lesser scheme of thinking

by jollypuppet



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, Pining, Sassy, i'll be straight with you guys i don't know how to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jollypuppet/pseuds/jollypuppet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only problem, Stiles realizes as he closes his bedroom door behind him, is that he definitely has a thing for Danny. Like a huge, world-shattering, you-should-definitely-be-shirtless-more-often thing for Danny Mahealani, <i>bad</i> with a capital B.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in a lesser scheme of thinking

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I felt like writing some Danny/Stiles, so here's some Danny/Stiles. And Lydia being Sassypants Grandmaster. And also other people being sassy, cause I wrote this at one in the morning and why not?
> 
> (Naturally, this fic kind of took on a mind of its own and pokes fun at, admittedly, a lot of stuff, but it's mostly the characters speaking, not really myself, I guess.)

There's really no easy way to break it to someone that the object of their affections is a psychopathic, bloodthirsty werewolf, and to be perfectly honest, there isn't really an easy way to even say a sentence like that. Lydia took it like a champ, of course, but not everybody's like Lydia Martin, and not everybody was tortured by the dormant soul of Peter Hale, local werewolf psychopath, for a good few months before coming to the "My Boyfriend Is A Werewolf" conclusion.

Danny kind of had no warning, poor guy, and Stiles can only be glad that he wasn't the one who had to break it to the guy (apparently Danny punched Scott in the face before having half a mental breakdown and then apologizing profusely.) Besides, Stiles most likely would have handled it with about as much delicacy as he does most of the things in his life -- "Hey, man, Ethan's a werewolf and he's killing people, can I borrow your calculus notes?"

That is, how a bulldozer would handle a crumbling building.

Not to compare Danny to a crumbling building of any sort, which Stiles muses on as he stares at the back of his head in his midday "I don't really give a shit about this class" haze. For a guy who was sort of dating (and possibly banging, which is kind of gross because _Ethan_ , but also kind of hot because _Danny_ ) a guy who could physically meld his body with his twin brother's like two separate cans of fleshy, fanged Play-Doh, well, he's taking it like a champ.

Lydia taps her fingernails against her desk (painted a deep peach color this week, very trendy) and Stiles tears his eyes away from Danny's back to look at her. _You're staring_ , she mouths, raising one eyebrow in question.

Had he been staring? Did it _matter_ if he was staring? He was behind Danny after all, and if anybody around him had bothered to look, it probably just looked like he was zoning out with his eyes trained on Danny's shoulders, his... really muscular, broad shoulders, _man_ , those shoulders are probably really warm and smooth and --

He probably deserves to get called on for an answer at that exact moment, and he probably deserves the giggles from his peers when he squawks in surprise. Lydia carefully hides her smirk behind her hand, especially amused considering Stiles doesn't even notice her do it -- he's too distracted watching Danny's shoulders shake momentarily with laughter.

\--

Lydia drives him home later that week after his Jeep breaks down, and he marvels about being able to see the floor of the car, seeing as how he can almost never see his own. All that's down there are two bottles of nail polish and a bulky Stephen King hardcover, and, naturally, he gets distracted by the polish.

"Do I look like the kind of person who can read in a moving vehicle?" He turns the light blue bottle over in his hand, chuckling. "Look, it's called _Bikini So Teeny_ , that's adorable!"

She plucks the bottle from his hands without taking her eyes from the road. "I know, Stiles, I wore it last week." she remarks, and chooses to pretend to not see him grab the other bottle rolling around on her floor (hey, he's cleaning out some of her clutter, why not let him?) "I'm kind of glad your car broke down, I've been meaning to talk to you."  
  
"You should _never_ start a sentence with 'I'm glad your car broke down.'" Stiles shudders, a bit overdramatically, if Lydia has to be honest. "But what's up?"  
  
Lydia Martin is nothing if not confident and self-assured (and gorgeous, obviously, but she tries not to remind the little people of their faults) but she still can't help but hesitate with a question as loaded as _Are you attracted to Danny Mahealani?_ It's like throwing a rock into a minefield, if that rock happens to be gay and that minefield happens to be sexually ambivalent.

So, instead, she says, "You keep spacing out in French. I'm just wondering if you're alright." She tries to make it sound completely selfless and sincere, but her tone comes off a little too saccharine, even for someone as wrapped tightly around her finger as Stiles.  
  
"You want to know why I keep staring at Danny, don't you?"

She sighs. "Sometimes I mourn all your untapped intellectual potential."

Stiles laughs at that, picking slightly at the edge of the label on the nail polish bottle. "I'm just making sure he's... good. You know? He's new to the whole werewolf thing. You know how that is." She drums her fingers against the steering wheel and nods, because she definitely _does_ know what that's like, thank you. "But at least you had Allison to help you sort it out. I guess Danny has Scott and me, but that's not the same, really."  
  
The car slows to a stop as they reach a red light, and she hums understandingly. She takes the opportunity to look Stiles in the eye, though, because there's clearly something amiss here -- simple concern is one thing, but doe-eyed ogling accompanied with the occasional dreamy smile is another.  
  
"And it's got _nothing_ to do with you maybe having a thing for Danny?"

And _there's_ the proverbial minefield rock, because Stiles splutters, his mouth contorting into this oddly incredulous, bemused grin that really shouldn't fit on face without the help of clothespins. "What? _No_ , Lydia, c'mon, I'm just _worried_ for the guy is all, what's wrong with being worried for him? I mean, you're worried too, aren't you? It's totally normal for me to be _worried_ , c'mon, Lydia, _psh._ "

The _psh_ is what does it for her, and her slow, Lydia Martin-patented all-knowing grin spreads across her face. "You talk a lot for someone who's hardly interested."

" _Worried_." he corrects her carefully, enunciating each syllable as if it's a word she's never heard before, and she rolls her eyes, accelerating past the green light. " _Seriously_ , Lydia! Wouldn't you freak out if you found out your boyfriend was some mythical creature, running around in the woods and killing people?"

The look she shoots Stiles is almost indescribable in its scrutiny, and Stiles sighs loudly, collapsing against the passenger's seat. "Yeah, okay, other than the one time that actually happened."

"It's happened to me _twice_ now! Forget Danny, what about little old Lydia?"  
  
To his credit, Stiles rubs her shoulder reassuringly, and though she gives him probably the strongest side-eye she's ever given a boy before, she can't be that mad at him. "You know I'm just kind of perpetually concerned about you." he says tiredly, and she concedes, because it's true. She pulls into his driveway slowly. "But trust me, I'm just keeping an eye on him for a little while, okay? Nothing weird."

She slumps her shoulders, mostly to fool Stiles into thinking she's given up. "I would hope that if you were having any emotional crises, you'd come straight to me so I can make fun of you." she says. "But I swear, Stiles, if there's anything going on, I'm gonna be really mad that you didn't tell me."  
  
"Like 'no more texting and making fun of people in the middle of the night' mad?" Stiles tests as he climbs out, and Lydia slips on her sunglasses, shifting into reverse.

"More like 'I'll never help you with anything ever again for about three months' mad." she tells him, and he mock winces. "Making fun of people is, unfortunately, something I can't really live without, and I like your sense of humor, equally unfortunate."

He tosses something through the open passenger's side window, and the bottle of nail polish lands with a soft thump against the seat. "Drive safe!" he calls in a sing-song voice as she drives away, and she just barely resists flipping him off as she cruises down the street.  

\--

The only problem, Stiles realizes as he closes his bedroom door behind him, is that he definitely has a thing for Danny. Like a huge, world-shattering, you-should-definitely-be-shirtless-more-often thing for Danny Mahealani, _bad_ with a capital B. Yeah, sure, there's the underlying concern that Danny might be freaking out a little bit about his repertoire of exes now containing a supernatural monster, but there's also the whole _Man, it would be really nice to maybe make out with you sometime._

Is that insensitive of him? There's a small voice in his head screaming that that's insensitive, but he squashes that little voice like the annoying bug that it is.

Now he's got this crushing internal dilemma _and_ Lydia breathing down his neck, and Stiles isn't really good at dealing with either of those things, even on their own. But then again, what is he supposed to do? He hasn't even fully accepted it himself, so how is he supposed to admit it to Lydia? It would feel like _lying_.

He sits down on the edge of his bed and steeples his fingers, and then he thinks, but it's kind of hard when every _Am I absolutely positive that I have a thing for Danny?_ gets immediately followed by _I wonder if his hugs are warm, I bet they'd be warm_.

Then again, he figures that just about answers his questions, and he groans because now he owes Lydia an apology.

\--

Stiles isn't simple, though, no. He's like a complex network of various pieces and strings, all strewn together and tangled and jumbled until they eventually pile up to make the hyperactive, skinny teenage boy that he is. He's haphazard, but he's whole, and he knows his various thoughts and values and how they connect to one another, even if an outsider would ponder over them for hours on end.

All those thoughts escape him abruptly when Danny walks up to him in the locker room, very much shirtless and very much speaking to him and _damn it Stiles listen to the words coming out of his mouth_.

"Sorry, I just spaced out really hard." he mumbles as she shuts his locker, deciding to just be straight with how shockingly short his attention span can sometimes be, but it was clearly not the worst choice because Danny laughs a little bit, so _bam_ , one point for Stiles.

"The physics project." Danny explains. "When can you come over to work on it?"

Stiles has to remind himself, pretty much in the span of time that it takes him to blink, that _no_ , Danny is not inviting him over to his house to actively spend time with him but to do _schoolwork_ , and _no_ , Stiles, that isn't really all that sexy unless you think really hard about it, but _stop thinking really hard about it_. "Any time this week's good. Whenever you're free."

He briefly flashes back to a few months prior when Danny jokingly offered to have sex with him, and he has to blink hard to get the thought out of his head that Danny would be interested in him. _Hell_ , he pretty much just went through one of the worst breakups possible for someone as nice as Danny, he should probably stop acting like such a vulture.

"Is Friday at nine good?"  
  
"You plan on burning the midnight oil?" Stiles asks as a joke.

Danny shrugs, throwing on his lacrosse jersey, and his hair is slightly mussed up when his head pops up again, which, _shit_ , that's adorable. He smiles just enough to show one of his dimples. "I work better at night, I think."  
  
He walks away, and Stiles has to stare a hole into the floor because, yep, he's got it bad.

\--

"What did you need to talk to me so urgently about?" Lydia asks him when she sets her lunch tray down across from his. He's chewing idly at a carrot stick and still trying to word this in his mouth, because either way, Lydia's going to be pretty smug no matter what he says.

"You were right." he concedes immediately, getting it out of the way. "I've definitely got a thing for Danny."

She grabs his hands from across the table, and her grin is voracious. "I _knew_ it."

\--

"You smell more like pheromones than usual." Stiles has gotten used to not being that afraid of Derek's growling, because nowadays, he practically growls everything. It's kind of cute, in a snarling, homicidal puppy way.

"Wow, why not just call me ugly while you're at it?" Isaac snickers in the corner of the room, but Derek's eyes end up sliding to the ceiling, as if he's actually considering it. Stiles grins. "C'mon, Derek, lighten up some."  
  
"You're in my _house_." Derek insists, squeezing the bridge of his nose. It doesn't elicit any sympathy from Stiles, no, he knows full well that werewolves don't headaches that easily, _thank you_. "Why did you have to come to my house, is all I'm asking?"  
  
Stiles jumps off of Derek's table, his feet slapping hard against the ground as he lands. "I wanted to hang out, and also the air conditioning at my house is broken. And Isaac's here, Isaac's cool."

"Dude, I don't wanna get kicked out too." Isaac complains, but there's a grin on his face, so it's clear that he's enjoying poking at Derek just as much as Stiles is. It's kind of like an unofficial sport of the Beacon Hills pack, fraying Derek's nerves, to the point that even Peter partakes, sometimes.

Besides, it's a good distraction for Stiles. It's easier to think about bothering Derek than it is to think about how he's really not at all good for Danny and would never in a million years even _deserve_ to go out with a guy like him.

"Oh, so _that's_ it." Derek mumbles suddenly, and Stiles opens his mouth to question, but Derek beats him to the punch. "You're gunning for someone _bad_ , Stiles, I can smell it."

Stiles makes a choked sound in the back of his throat, and even Isaac scrunches up his nose, like he can suddenly smell it, too. Yeah, of _course_ werewolves can smell teenage boy pining. "That's super creepy, if you think about it hard enough." he says.

"I'm gonna forego the immature puns that I could make out of that in favor of saying that I do _not_ feel like being your relationship therapy right now, Stiles." Derek bites. "Get out of my house and go for it, I don't care."

Isaac crosses his arms. "I don't know, Derek, that kind of sounds like relationship advice to me." And he's right, it _does_ sort of sound like relationship advice, and Stiles can't help but grin a little bit, despite himself. Derek rolls his eyes, and he stands up from where he's been sitting by the window.

"Whatever will get him out of here." he says. He approaches Stiles and takes him by the shoulders, spinning him around and (gently, which is nice of him) pushing him towards the door. "Nothing's gonna happen if you sit around on your ass. Take some initiative for once."

"I knew you were a good influence on me, Derek." he says with a grin, and Derek growls in warning as he pushes him out the door. "Bye, Isaac!"

"Bye, Stiles!" Isaac calls after him before Derek slams the door.

\--

"Derek says I should just go for it." Stiles comments idly on Wednesday at lunch to Lydia (and also Scott and Allison, because apparently their lunch table has to be flooded with every single person Stiles really doesn't want to be harshly judged by right now.)

And speaking of being harshly judged, the collective set of looks that the three of them shoot him, hoo, boy. He really wishes he could frame them and throw them up on a mantel, right above a plaque that reads _Never Ask Derek For Advice._

\--

Then, of course, there's the fact that Danny _literally sits next to him_ in physics, which is totally cool, cause Danny's cool and he always smells really nice and does Stiles really take note of these things so frequently? But there's a substitute that day and they're told to break off and work on fleshing together their projects, which approximately zero people actually do in favor of goofing around.

Danny ends up doodling across the pages of his notebook, and Stiles is shocked when he finally brings up the whole touchy topic for the first time with him.

"Okay, so," Danny prefaces abruptly, and it startles Stiles, almost, because they weren't having a conversation prior to this and _oh God was I doing something stupid,_ "if they morphed their bodies together, then where did all the extra organs go?"

Stiles blinks, because _Danny is talking werewolves with him_ , and this is actually a lot more exciting and less awkward than he thought it would be. He grins. "I don't get werewolf logic, man. They probably disappeared into some alternate dimension, for all I know." Danny laughs, and _gosh_ , he has a nice smile.

"Well, I'm just thinking, it's not like they could fit two brains into one skull, you know? So did they do some crazy mind-meld, or did one of them take complete control?" He furrows his brow. "Is that the kind of thing you take turns with?"

Stiles laughs. "You make it sound like they were sharing some toy." Danny shrugs.

"Just how confusing would it be if twin brothers of different sexualities had to share the same mind for a while?" Danny's eyes widen a little bit. "How do you even find out you can  _do_ that?"  
  
He ends up laughing way louder and way longer than he means to, and the substitute pretty much tells him in nice terms to shut up, but it's alright, because Danny's laughing, too, and he'd be a liar if this didn't just make his day.

\--

"Just wear something nice." Allison tells him on Friday at lunch, because he had decided to panic right in the middle of Economics that morning and now he's freaking out because, _no_ , this isn't a date, but he still should present himself nicely, right?

He gives Allison a look that basically says _Yes, thank you for your input_ , and she shrugs, going back to nibbling at her sandwich.

Scott furrows his brow as he stares at the table. "Why not bring him a present?" he asks, drawing invisible patterns in the table's surface. "Like, something that says 'Sorry that your boyfriend was a psycho, want to see a movie sometime?'"  
  
"Now I just need to translate that into flower language so I can bring him a bouquet." Stiles bites out, and Scott looks about as lost as Allison does. Stiles sighs and rests his head against his arms, because he's being stupid and this isn't a _date_ , it's a _physics project_ , but he's still got it bad for Danny Mahealani and this is a pretty good opportunity to do something about it.

Lydia pats his hand consolingly. "Just be natural, Stiles. Danny's the kind of guy who likes natural, easy-going guys, and by the looks of it, you're right up his alley. I mean, be delicate about the whole Ethan thing, and I hate to agree with Derek, but you should just go for it."

"He _did_ joke about having sex with you." Scott says, as if that's some kind of point in Stiles' favor, and Stiles keeps his head down on the table. Still, he'd be lying if he said Lydia's words didn't make him feel a little bit better.

No less nervous, really, but better.

\--

An hour into his visit at Danny's house, they still haven't started the physics project, and Stiles hasn't said anything horribly embarrassing, and... they're just hanging out. It'd been a visit meant for school, but now they're just hanging out, and holy shit, Stiles might have done something right this time around.

"We're probably gonna regret not doing this project a week from now." Danny says, but he doesn't look too urgent to do anything about it, so Stiles doesn't get up from where he's sprawled on Danny's couch.

He shrugs. "I've got connections. We'll pull through, schoolwork on a Friday's a bummer." Danny shrugs, and Stiles counts it as another success, of which he has a surprising amount this evening.

A silence settles in the conversation, one that's not entirely comfortable, but not exactly awkward, either, and Stiles chooses to stare at the ceiling, rolling his can of soda back and forth against the floor below him. 

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" Danny says, and Stiles looks up. Danny's staring at the carpet with an oddly focused expression, and Stiles has a feeling that they're about to embark on a difficult conversation.

That's basically his cue to get nervous.

"Yeah, shoot." he says, despite his better judgment.

Danny seems to struggle with his thoughts for a second, chewing at his lip as he thinks, and Stiles can't help but notice how his dimples are that much starker when he does it, though not as much as when he laughs (he's gotten pretty fond of Danny's laugh lately, he has to admit.)

He seems to make some connection in his head. "You know, Aidan." he says, almost too quickly, "how he and Lydia were kind of interested in one another? Do you think he actually liked her at all? Or was she just some random person in his way?"

He trails off, and Stiles watches him for a second. Danny gives him a little one-shouldered shrug, and Stiles really can't understand why he might be bringing up Lydia now, or even Aidan, for that matter, when Danny was dating --

...Oh.

"Oh." Stiles says softly, because _that's_ what he means. Lydia explained to him, once, some metaphor involving rocks and minefields, and he doesn't really remember what her point had been at that time, but he thinks that's pretty applicable here.

 _Be natural_ , he thinks. So, naturally, he doesn't think.

"Ethan and Aidan were human." Well, that's not _enough_ thinking, but alright. "Er, not _human_ , obviously, but part of them was human, right? Just because they were in the alpha pack and the alpha pack was _definitely_ not cool, like, ten-thousand percent uncool, doesn't mean that they couldn't feel things and... shit. I dunno." He scratches his head, because this is _Danny_ , and he _can't fuck this up_. "What I'm saying is, if either of them were interested in someone, like Lydia, I guess, then they probably had plenty of reason to."

Danny nods, and he doesn't look nearly as nervous as Stiles feels, though it's such a sensitive subject. It feels so odd to speak in metaphors like this, but Stiles doesn't know how to do it any other way. He'd rather sidestep this minefield than charge right through it, if he's to be perfectly honest.

Stiles laughs, and it's a little too high-pitched, a little too forced. "I mean, look at me, right? Lydia's one of my best friends, and I love her to pieces. Aidan probably saw in her exactly what I see in her, because she's just awesome."

Danny smiles a little a bit. "She _is_ awesome."

"And, I mean, whoever Ethan --" He says it before he can think, and he retracts a bit, trying to find a better way to say it, but it just never really comes. "Ethan's... well, hey, I liked him better than Aidan anyway, he must have been a pretty good judge of character and... attractiveness. I guess."

Danny nods. "Yeah, Ethan _did_ make some pretty good choices, didn't he?" And _there_ it is, Stiles is back in his safe zone. He envies Danny's abilities to bounce back, because it's something that he's never been terribly good at.

"I think Ethan made a great choice. Personally." Stiles says, and he tacks on the last part to make it sound more casual. Danny's laugh is quiet in the room, and Stiles grins at him again. "But, dude, I have to give you props for handling the whole werewolf situation the way you did. Must have been freaky."

"Nah, not really. Jackson told me months ago."

Stiles sits up, surprised. He's been worrying all this time about Danny adapting to this new werewolf information, and _Jackson_ _already told him?_ Of course that's something Jackson would pull, it's just like him to throw out the whole "Hey, I'm a werewolf" card, and --

Well, it's just like Danny to be cool with, he supposes.

Danny grins. "Are you surprised? I'm pretty sure I've known about it longer than Lydia has."  
  
"Scott told me you flipped out!" Stiles blurts, and he probably sounds like a huge dick, yeah, but this is a curveball he just really wasn't expecting at this point. "He said you _punched him!_ "

"He told me my boyfriend was a _psychopath_." Danny tells him, and it's _way_ too calm, considering the words coming out of his mouth. "Of course I was gonna get kind of defensive, and I probably freaked out a little because I didn't know Ethan was a werewolf, never mind an alpha who was killing people."

Stiiles is still staring at him from his perch on the couch, and Danny raises an eyebrow, as if to challenge him. He's still smirking in that dumb way that makes one of his dimples stand out. "Well, still." Stiles upholds, matter-of-fact. "Kudos to you for taking it so well. Good job."  
  
"You sound upset." Danny laughs.

"I love breaking the werewolf news to people!" Stiles explains. "It's _hilarious_ , even though it's hard as hell cause nobody ever believes you! It's so much less fun when you already _knew_ , dude."

"Well, I _was_ dating one of them." Danny says, still amused. "That's kind of a twist, right?"  
  
"Not really." Stiles chuckles, running his mouth now that his sarcasm engine is basically in full gear. "I mean, you're _Danny_ , anybody would date you, man, violent werewolf or not, hell, _I'd_ date you --"  
  
_Nice_ one, Stilinski.

He clams up almost immediately, putting up his hands. "Wait, wait, I don't mean -- or, I _kinda_ mean, but, uh... you're just really --" Danny watches him with interest, and that just makes it worse, because now he's under pressure and he's bad at working under pressure. "See, listen, Scott keeps bringing up, not me, _Scott_ , about how you joked a few months ago about having sex with me, but, like, _crazy_ , dude, right? Haha, I mean, I'm not, well. I'm not the kind of guy who goes sleeping around or anything, not that that's, uh. I just. Um."

Danny squints his eyes a little bit. "Jeez, that's a speech you should really write down, very eloquent." And Stiles deserves to be just a _little_ bit annoyed, because he sounds so damn amused at his verbal flailing, but hey, what's he supposed to do? He kind of just accidentally admitting that he's been _pining_ for, what, two weeks? How is one _supposed_ to follow that up?

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Yes, the next time I choose to try and express my interest in someone, I'll make sure to write it down in triplicate. Do you think bar graphs would be too much?" Danny laughs, despite Stiles' slightly-miffed tone, and it's really a point in his favor for being so good natured.  
  
Danny stands up from where he was perched on the floor and cracks his back, and _sweet hell_ , he's still hot (as if this conversation would have made him any less hot, so Stiles rolls his eyes so hard, they damn near fall out of his eye sockets.) He looks out the window at the darkening streets, illuminated in increments by the street lights.

"You know, the police still haven't lifted the curfew." Danny mumbles as he stares out onto the street, and Stiles jumps up from the couch, practically anticipating the _Get out of my house_ line. Danny looks at him with a small note of concern. "It's almost eleven, shouldn't you get home?"  
  
Something in his heart sinks, because yep, there it is. He sighs. "Yeah, you're right. My dad's probably pissed off already, he's been worried sick about me ever since the murders started."

"I don't blame him, I guess." Danny remarks as he follows Stiles to the foyer, flipping on all the porch lights so that the dark outline of his Jeep can be seen in the driveway. "And I almost forgot, I wanted to ask you something."  
  
"Shoot, man."

"Do you want to go see a movie tomorrow?"  
  
... _what._

"Wait, really?" he asks, and his voice squeaks a little bit, and he _hates_ himself for it. There's an odd heat creeping up his neck and threatening to flood into his face, and he just tries to tell himself to stay calm, because Danny's _nice_ and he's a _good friend_ , and he's _not asking Stiles on a date_ , he probably just wants to see a goddamn movie with someone and Stiles is the only loser whose schedule is barren enough that he'd actually say yes.

Danny nods. "Yeah, I'm free if you are. We can get lunch, too, if you like."

 _Holy shit, this is a date_.

He swallows thickly, because he's never really been formally asked on a date, mostly because he's awkward and tries to ask other people on dates and gets rejected and, _holy fuck_ , he suddenly realizes that Danny wasn't ever all that broken up over the whole Ethan's-a-werewolf thing after all. No, Danny Mahealani's not the kind of guy to get bent out of shape over something stupid like that, but here Stiles is, gaping like a moron in the foyer of the Mahealani household with this tall, muscular, _hot_ Hawaiian guy standing in front of him and --

Stiles probably should have been concerned about himself. Danny's not the one with the problem, obviously, _he_ is.  
  
"Yeah." he says, and he smiles shakily, because it's still a date, sort of, he thinks? And _hell yeah,_ he wants to go on a date with Danny. "Yeah, that sounds awesome, that's great. Just, uh." _Quit stuttering, you idiot, say something cute_. "I can, um, sneak food in, if you want?"  
  
Danny smiles. "See, I always try to do that and people think I'm weird." Okay, not exactly the cutest thing he could have said, but definitely not the worst thing, either. At least he stopped tripping over his words, and he grins back. He can't help but think Ethan was an _idiot_ for thinking anything was more important than this guy, alpha pack or no.

He walks out Danny's house with a spring in his step that's been absent from him for pretty much the entire week, and he waves back at him as he unlocks the door to his car.

"Hey, and by the way," Danny calls out, and Stiles pauses, "that offer that I made, a few months ago? Consider it less off the table, more on hold." That's an offer for sex, _that's an offer for sex, holy shit, he just --_

And, Jesus, he actually says something kind of cool. "I'll bear that in mind." he says, and for a promise of sex, it's kind of really friendly, almost cute, in a way, and he wonders if it's at all indicative of what a relationship with Danny would _be_ like.

Because if it is, it's awesome.

Danny waves again as he shuts the door, and Stiles drives home that night blaring Queen and singing at the top of his lungs, because he fucking _feels like it_.

\--

[From LYDIA: 10:43]  
_how did it go????_

[From STILES: 10:47]  
_lunch and movies tmrw_

[From LYDIA: 10:52]  
_I. TOLD. YOU._

\--

In the midst of "I really don't give a shit about this class" haze that next Monday, he ends up staring at the back of Danny's head again, and if he's grinning, so what? He has a right to grin now, doesn't he? At least he's not telling himself it's about _werewolves_ or _concern_ , but more of just _Danny's shoulders are really, really nice_.

A small, folded up piece of pink notebook paper lands gracefully on his desk from the side, and when he looks over, Lydia's inspecting her nails (a cool green this week, also very trendy.) He unfolds it, and can't help but grin.

 _try not to look so lovestruck_ _< 3_

He picks up his pen and scribbles a quick reply, an unassuming _you'd probably feel the same way if you made out with him in a movie theater_ in small letters before folding it up and throwing it back while the teacher's back is turned. He doesn't look over when he hears her gasp a little bit, but he knows she's smiling.

\--

By the time he gets to his lunch table, Scott's staring at Lydia with an intense expression of confusion, and Stiles is eager to hear whatever's coming out of her mouth.

"It's called a _wavefunction_ , Scott, it's not a little pitchfork. It's very important to quantum theory." She looks up as he sits down. "You get it, don't you, Stiles?"

"I probably would if you gave me an hour to Google it." Stiles replies quickly, but Lydia, Scott, and Allison don't hear him, as they're smiling at something very much _behind_ him. "Man, am I really that easy to ignore?"

"Do you guys mind if I sit here for today?"  
  
Well, _hello_ , Danny's voice.

Danny sits down in the seat directly to Stiles' right, and Stiles bumps his shoulder. "Join the party, man, Lydia was just telling us about science and shit."

"It's not shit." Lydia says, her tone condescending. "If none of you appreciate the finer points of quantum mechanics, then I don't have to bother you talking about it."

"If it's called a wavefunction, why not just make it a _w_ then?" Scott asks, scratching his head. "I mean, I'm all for science, but that just seems kind of convoluted." Allison and Lydia mockingly applaud his usage of _convoluted_ , and Scott has trouble glaring at both of them when they're on either side of him.

"Welcome to the club." Stiles says to Danny while they argue theoretical physics or whatever, and Danny bumps his shoulder back.

"Glad to be here."

Stiles doesn't have to say that he is, too.


End file.
